The quality of digital images continues to improve as advances in digital imaging technology provide increasingly higher resolution and color variation. In general, however, as image quality increases, the resultant image data files increase geometrically in size.
To reduce the storage required to store image data and the bandwidth needed to transmit image data, image compression technologies are employed, such as those based on JPEG standards. In general, a JPEG encoder is designed to allow its operator to trade off the resultant data file size of an image against that image's quality when decoded. As can be readily appreciated, any significant improvement in compression that does not have a corresponding reduction in image quality is desirable.